


Wet and Dirty

by Immy



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-16
Updated: 2013-07-16
Packaged: 2017-12-20 08:29:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/885146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Immy/pseuds/Immy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock has stolen one too many organs, so Molly gives him a job to pay her back.  A gardening job.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wet and Dirty

John and Sherlock climbed out of the cab after a long taxi ride. Molly had a quaint little house just outside the city. It was a small two story building with blue shutters and whitewashed brick. The brick path leading up to the small patio and wooden door was surrounded by overgrown bushes and willow trees. 

Sherlock sneered at the bushes and plants, trying not to touch any of the thorns from the raspberry bush that was now weaving across the path. John walked to the door and opened a large plastic storage box that had been left for them. He opened it and pulled out two pairs of gloves and threw one at Sherlock’s feet. The detective looked at the gloves as if they had insulted his mother. 

John rolled his eyes as he pulled his gloves on. “We would not be here if you had left that liver alone. You can’t just expect Molly to let you steal body parts without asking.”

“I don’t know why we agreed to do this.” Sherlock tapped the gloves with his feet.

“She told her boss that she did not know how they disappeared in exchange for this. Now put on your gloves and start weeding the path.”

“Or,” he said walking around John and shutting the box lightly, “we could light the whole thing on fire and leave before the fire department arrives.”

“You can’t light it on fire and you cannot burn it with acid and you cannot get out of this. I’m going to go around to the back yard and see how much work needs so be done there. Try and get some weeding done before I get back.”

Sherlock picked up the gloved and muttered some curses under his breath as he watched John round the side of the little house. He picked at the fading bumblebee pattern on it and slipped the first glove on. They were too small for him, of course. Why would tiny Molly have Sherlock sized gardening gloves. He sighed and dropped them back to his feet. Sherlock walked down the three little steps too the front path and began to pull at the weeds. After ripping the leaves of the first few, he got the hang of tugging and wiggling the roots from the ground and pulling the whole thing out from between the bricks. He smiled at the growing pile of weeds at his side and reached down for the next one, but instead wrapped his fingers around a bunch of raspberry thorns stretching across the path.

This, of course, was following by a string of swears. Sherlock grabbed his hand, stomped up the three little steps and kicked lid off of the storage tub. He reached in for the biggest pair of trimmers he could find. Picking up the trimmers in one hand and shoving his other into his armpit, he took off down the steps and path and up the bush. In a few swift motions he chopped off three of the main shoots of the plant. He threw the trimmers to the ground and picked up the branch that was stretching across the path and pulled it up, ripping it’s branches from the brick.

Sherlock walked back to the steps and sat down on the second one, staring at the ripped and mutilated raspberry branch across from him. Sherlock heard the sound of the gate on the side of the house creak. John was returning from the back. Sherlock pushed back his hatred for the raspberry bush and jumped to his feet. He grabbed the trimmers and began to cut the bush into shape. Ignoring the throbbing of his hand, he carefully clipped at the bush.

“Starting with the bushes?” John said as he rounded the side of the house. “Alright, but it’s better to get the hard weeding done first before the trimming.”

“The raspberry bush was bothering me so I made the decision to start with it.”

“You really should wear gloves. Those thorns hurt like hell.” John hunched over and started weeding between the bricks around the steps.

“I can imagine,” Sherlock hummed bitterly. 

Sherlock finished on the raspberry bush, which looked quite nice now, and moved to some of the other bushes. He trimmed them down and shaped them to that they would not be in the way of the path. John finished the weeding and asked Sherlock to bring all of the weeds and clippings to the compost bin in the back yard. Sherlock picked up the branches (cursing under his breath as the thorns poked though his shirt) and walked around the house and through the little blue wooden gate. The back was in much better shape than the front. Most of the yard was empty grass, which mostly free of weeds. Sherlock spotted the black compost bin behind another willow tree in the back left corner of the yard. He walked over and dumped the clippings in.

Out from behind the bin, a chipmunk jumped up into view. Sherlock watched as it reached and grabbed seeds from one of the branches and shoved them into his mouth. Sherlock was about to take a cautious step towards it when a black and white cat jumped over the bin and grabbed the chipmunk from where it was perched. Sherlock reached out to grab the cat, but it was already running across the yard and into the cat door on Molly’s back door.

“Well,” he mumbled and walked back to the from yard.

Sherlock found John leaning over the garden around the edge of the tiny patio trying to fix up some of the flowers. He watched as he poured down some fresh soil and pushed it around the plants, packing it down.

John looked over his shoulder at Sherlock and turned back to the garden. “Could you fill a watering can and bring it over here?” he asked.

“Fill it with what?”

“Just get the water, you sod.”

Sherlock smirked and went over to faucet on the side of the house with a large green watering can from the supply container. The knob was rusted and hard to turn. Sherlock dropped the can and held on to the faucet with two hands and tried to open it. He checked the hose that was leading into the watering can and then continued to turn it. When the faucet finally turned Sherlock jolted back, pulling hose with him. The water sprayed out at the highest pressure onto the detective where he sat with the broken hose in his hands.

“Sherlock?” John rounded the corner to find Sherlock sopping wet and fighting with the faucet.

“It’s defective, John! Make it stop!”

“God damn it, Sherlock,” John said and walked over. He grabbed the faucet and forced it slowly shut. “There,” he said leaning against the brick wall. He looked down at Sherlock. He was sitting in a patch of muddy grass, sopping wet, messy and dirty. He looked up at John with a scowl that caused John to burst into laughter.

Sherlock stood up and tried to brush himself off while ineffectively trying not to blush. “Stop it,” he snarled, “stop laughing, it’s not funny.”

John tried to swallow his laughter but could not stop smiling with amusement. “Sorry, just, your face.”

“What about my face?’

“Nothing. Come one, lets see if there is anything to dry you off.”

“I feel gross, John”

“That’s nice, Sherlock”

John climbed the steps and looked through the box for a minute. “No, sorry Sherlock, there’s nothing in here.”

“Well I’m not just going to stay filthy like this. I need to get dried off at least.”

“You’ll dry off as they day passes. It’s warm out, it won’t take too long.”

“I’m sure Molly has towels inside.”

John turned and looked Sherlock in the eye. “We are not breaking into Molly’s house to get you a towel.”

“It’s not necessarily breaking in –“

“Yes, it is”

“Okay, it is. But I can’t just stay this way!”

John rolled his eyes.

“There is a cat door in the back yard,” Sherlock said quietly.

“I’m not crawling through a cat door. I’d never fit.”

“I might be able to.”

“You’ll get stuck and it’s entering with out permission. We were asked to clean a garden, not crawl through cat doors.”

But Sherlock was already walking around the side of the house. John jogged after him and found him kneeling beside the cat door.

“You see John,” Sherlock said without looking at the doctor, “it’s possible to learn from anything or anyone. The strangest sources can have the best lessons. Cat’s use their whiskers to navigate and to tell if they can pass through small spaces. If the head can fit the rest of them can. Humans are a bit different, but if my shoulders can fit so can the rest of my body.”

Sherlock leaned forward and stuck his head through the flap. He positioned his shoulders and continued to move forward until he abruptly stopped just passes his shoulders.

“John,” Sherlock voice said muffled from the door.

“Well, congratulations. You learnt something from a cat that I could have told you. You don’t fit, idiot.”

“Well, I can see that now!”

“Do you need help?”

“NO.”

There was a long pause filled with nothing but the sound of the door clicking against the frame as Sherlock struggled. 

“Do you need help now?”

“Yes.”

John kneeled beside Sherlock. His shoulders were stuck diagonally in the door, one in the top right corner and the other in the bottom right. There would be no way to make him turn to get out. John stood up and placed his hands under Sherlock’s arms and tried to pull, but to no avail.

He stood and moved to the side of the detective. He was about to grab his waist to try and pull him from the clutches to the cat door when Sherlock let out a yell.

“JOHN.”

“Shit, what?”

“John, there is a cat licking my face! Get me out of this door!”

“Okay, just stay still.”

“And stop laughing!”

John turned back from talking to him. “Alright, ready.”

“Just get me out of this door. I can hear more cats coming.”

John grabbed Sherlock’s waist and pulled as hard as he could. After a moment, the two men fell backwards onto the grass, neither stuck in a cat door.

John heard the cat door flap a few more times. He sat up to see that two cats were now sitting around Sherlock and scratching at his ever dirtying shirt, one licking the side of his face. Sherlock sat up, pushing the cats away from him. He stood and walked back to the front of the house.

“You okay, Sherlock?” John called after him.

“Of course.” He answered without looking back.

John watched as Molly’s cat’s wandered back into the house, and then stood to follow Sherlock.

“Sherlock,” he said as he pushed the gait open, “so we should probably start with – Sherlock? Where’d you – WHAT THE HELL.”

A cold bucket of water splashed down the doctor’s back and neck. He looked up to see Sherlock standing on the patio giving John a sly grin.

“What the hell was that for? I just helped you get our of a damn cat door!”

“Well if I have to be wet and dirty then I don’t want to be the only one.”

“Damn it, Sherlock.” John looked back up at Sherlock and started to laugh. Sherlock joined him and they both sat down on the patio together.

“We were supposed to be fixing up a garden and we end up having a bloody water fight like a pair of kids.”

“Well at least we watered the lawn.”

“Oh, shut up,” John said with a laugh.

**Author's Note:**

> (and then they fricked in the booty)
> 
> This was really fun! Thanks to a bunch of the Clara's Echos for support while I wrote this ily <3


End file.
